Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a point I would like to make regarding herpetoculture. In defending against the arguments of anti-exotic politicians, we often say that breeding reptiles in captivity is one way to prevent the extinction of these animals. Since reptiles are disappearing across the planet, this is a very penetrating statement for someone who wants to conserve nature.

But is this really what we are doing? Let's look at the ball python, for example. Python regius has been bred en masse for decades, and this popularity has been fueled by the "production" of some very striking morphs, including albinos and leucistics. However, any biologist will tell you that such creatures cannot survive in the wild. Albinos can hardly be exposed to sunlight, or their health is threatened. Other morphs create problems as well; how on earth could a lavender ball python avoid detection by predators if its camouflage has been stripped away? Since many of these traits are recessive, the pythons' offspring wouldn't be any better off, though whether such an animal would live long enough to breed is debatable.

What I am saying is, if ball pythons were to become critically endangered in the wild, how could captive-bred individuals serve the wild populations if the vast majority of them were unable to survive in the wild? A reintroducing program would certainly be a dramatic failure if all of the captive pythons were genetically anomalous.

So is the captive breeding of such species as the ball python, corn snake, king snake, bearded dragon, and leopard gecko really giving us a reservoir of specimens in case wild populations were to become endangered? It would appear not. My point is this: perhaps it is unwise to continually be trying to "engineer" oddball reptiles simply because they are more visually pleasing to someone who cannot appreciate reptiles otherwise. Instead, why not concentrate on exploring "normal" animals for all their ordinary glory? Is a normal ball python really all that bad? And when the wolves come knocking at our doors with things like HR 669, can we really say that professional breeders are aiding conservation?

Best regards,
Pinstripe

I don't think this has ever been the goal. I believe the Ideah is that with Ball Pythons for example, in such large quantities and in much higher quality than fresh imports, then this would releive pressure to import wild animals. Why would you buy a freshly imported Ball with all the problems associated with them, when you can buy a super nice captive bred one? This is how we help the situation hopefully. Prices come down drastically for wild imports and thus they become less lucrative for the people catching and selling them.
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King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
J Sierra

What part of you dont know what you are doing dont you understand?

Fact of the matter is in many places it is illegal to release animals into the wild any which way so the only things that matters in the hobby are snakes in cages.

Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com
twitter.com/TomsSnakes

Thanks for your replies.

I don't know what I am doing? I am not "doing" anything.

I wanted to clarify this issue for myself. Obviously creating morphs is important for the hobby to sustain itself, but normal animals can be great too. I see many pet buyers looking for the coolest mutation and failing to grasp that a snake is fascinating for what it already is.

And I copied this post to other forums to get a variety of opinions. Please don't reply to this multiple times.

Best regards,
pinstripe

And I copied this post to other forums to get a variety of opinions.

"Popularity" or what is popular is subjective.

Go to a large Reptile show like Daytona or Anahiem and see what people are buying. You will see the morphs are. Normal examples are nice but most are not worth the cost of raising and breeding to make even enough profit to cover costs of maintenance much less spend money on being a vendor at a reptile show or spending money to place an ad on the classifieds..

I think on this forums you will find that most prefer the normal representations and not the morphs. But these are also $25-$50. snakes and most anyone can afford that.

Also i am sure there are more normal Ball pythons, kingsnakes, cornsakes out there than any morph. So common sense will tell you soemone is buying them so that makes them MORE popular. It is saturation of the marketplace.

Then there are the rare snakes that are not morphs but may be a locality that is har to get or something like Calif Mountain kingsnakes (which are illegal to collect and take out of Calif). These are te rare snakes and people that can afford them will also pay a premium price for them just as the morphs.
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www.Bluerosy.com

"Also i am sure there are more normal Ball pythons, kingsnakes, cornsakes out there than any morph."
Maybe than any one morph. But I see more morphs overall than normals with corns and balls. WHich is sort of weird.
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We wouldn't have 6 and a half billion people if you had to be beautiful to get laid.
6.6 African House snakes
3.2 reticulated pythons
.1 corn snake
4.2 Florida Kings
1.2 speckled kings
1.2 ball pythons
0.0.1 Argentine boa

Sorry I already did. I visit several forums so I replied in them. Though your gonna get the best replies in this one, ha ha.
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King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
J Sierra

All morph projects [colubrids] must begin with the process of hets which look the way normal wild type snakes are supposed to look. Every breeder I know who produces morphs carries on about the HETS. How gorgeous they are.

Most people pick on them, make their low blow style comments which is one of the reasons I dont post on here much.

I always liked having a Morph male and one or more Het females in a project. This would have made a huge difference in where our hobby is now. There would not be so many morphs out there and they may have been regarded as rare, when now people scoff at the newest of the new as it's no big deal. But too many people bred morph to morph and they were readily available.

All my snakes are important to me, and my MBKs are some of my faves. My female is in a Boaphile cage worth way more than the snake while other snakes that make me more money are in racks. So I just wanted to say that it's wrong to kind of assume Morph breeders do not like normals. I realize you may not have been trying to imply that at all, but there certainly are people who think Morph guys don't appreciate the wold types in nature.

However I do side with the guys who think all snakes in captivity have little to do with nature anymore. And they should always remain in captivity.

Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com
twitter.com/TomsSnakes

"Most people pick on them, make their low blow style comments which is one of the reasons I dont post on here much. "

Who's picked on hets?

It's true that it's hard to justify breeding normals if you want to make a living, or even break even. It's part of what I've paid attention to selecting what animals I want to breed. I don't care about making a ton of money but I can't see a way to even break even with snakes where I'd get 20 bucks a pop for babies. By the time you factor in feeding adults for a year, buying hatchling racks, buying advertising, etc. it'd just lose lots of money. So I bought hets/possible hets for multiple traits and we'll see how it goes. Even if it's a bust I have some neat animals.
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We wouldn't have 6 and a half billion people if you had to be beautiful to get laid.
6.6 African House snakes
3.2 reticulated pythons
.1 corn snake
4.2 Florida Kings
1.2 speckled kings
1.2 ball pythons
0.0.1 Argentine boa

Many people have, and I cannot name names...
The point is plenty of people will not appreciate the NATURAL beauty of a snake if it is a het or possible het. Yet it is often a stunning representation of a wild type.

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TomsSnakes.com
twitter.com/TomsSnakes

"The point is plenty of people will not appreciate the NATURAL beauty of a snake if it is a het or possible het. Yet it is often a stunning representation of a wild type. "
Gotcha. I was thinking it was the other way--people ragging on it because it was only a het and not an actual morph. Yeah, that sucks. For instance the specks I got from you are great examples of the wild type, regardless of if they're het or not.
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We wouldn't have 6 and a half billion people if you had to be beautiful to get laid.
6.6 African House snakes
3.2 reticulated pythons
.1 corn snake
4.2 Florida Kings
1.2 speckled kings
1.2 ball pythons
0.0.1 Argentine boa

Great example.
There were people who chose not to have them because of the possible het factor as if it were a negative to them, when they're actually the look most people want to see in a Speck.
Tom Stevens
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TomsSnakes.com
twitter.com/TomsSnakes

>>Great example.
>>There were people who chose not to have them because of the possible het factor as if it were a negative to them, when they're actually the look most people want to see in a Speck.

Tom,
I think the Vandeventer specks are GREAT examples of Holbrooki.....I have no idea if you outcrossed any but they are some of the best I have seen actually....As adults they have a yellow speck on every scale and lose all crossbars......
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John Lassiter
Poor planning and procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part...
www.coastalbendcaptivebreeding.com

Its not about the morphs, that kinda dumb. You are picking your own reasons, and not looking at the big picture.

Its about the knowledge that allows the production of morphs. That is, now there is an army of keepers all armed with the knowledge of how to maintain and produce wild morph ball pythons.

Its also about the facilities that could be used to conserve wild animals. Again, if ever needed.

Its also about the amount of people exposed to any one species, you mentioned ball pythons. In the past, where were very few people in the world that knew what a ball python was, therefore, there would be no support or need to conserve them.

Again, back to the start of this post, at least we know that is there were only a handful of wild ball pythons left, they could be brought into captivity and produced in high numbers, then there would be a chance their offspring could be re-established if there was habitat to release them back into. Cheers